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All Rise...

Judge Dan Mancini typed this entire review with his left hand while throwing up devil horns with his right.

The Charge

Ride the tiger!

The Case

The passing of Ronnie James Dio on May 16, 2010 marked the end of an era for
heavy metal music. If it's possible for one man to epitomize the style and
substance of metal, Ronnie James Dio was that man—his angular features,
curly locks, penchant for wearing black leather pants, and bombastic vocal style
were 100 percent unadulterated metal. The man almost single-handedly made devil
horns the not-so-secret hand signal of metal heads all over the planet. What's
more metal than that? Dio began his career in the late '60s, fronting the
blues-rock outfit Elf before teaming with Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie
Blackmore in the proto-metal band Rainbow in the mid-'70s. He then replaced Ozzy
Osbourne in Black Sabbath in the late '70s and early '80s, before launching his
own band, Dio. His recorded output includes top-shelf metal classics like
Rainbow's Rising (1976), Sabbath's Heaven and Hell (1980), and the
record that is the focus of this Blu-ray release: Dio's Holy Diver from
1983.

Released to celebrate Dio's life (or cash in on his death, depending on your
level of cynicism), Dio: Holy Diver Live captures a rare performance of
the titular album in its entirety at the relatively cozy Astoria Theater in
London on October 22, 2005. The performance opens with a rocking rendition of
"Tarot Woman" from Rainbow's Rising, segues into the Black
Sabbath classic "The Sign of the Southern Cross" from Mob
Rules, and then "One Night in the City" from Dio's The Last in
Line. The performance of Holy Diver in its full glory is preceded by
a video introduction so full of pretension and hokey '80s video effects that it
comes across as Spinal Tap style self-parody. Rest assured, though, that the
musical performance is rock solid. The show concludes with another pair of
Rainbow and Sabbath tunes: "Gates of Babylon" and "Heaven and
Hell." The three-song encore consists of two more Rainbow songs ("Man
on the Silver Mountain" and "Long Live Rock and Roll"), along
with the Dio number "We Rock."

Dio circa 2005 consisted of drummer Simon Wright (AC/DC), guitarist Doug
Aldrich (Whitesnake), bassist Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), and keyboardist Scott
Warren (Warrant). It's a solid outfit that works its way competently and
energetically through the music, while relegating themselves to being a musical
framework for showcasing Ronnie James Dio's pipes. And what pipes Dio has.
Sixty-two years old when the performance took place, one would expect Ronnie
James to have lost something of his vocal range or power. He had not. Anchored
in a wide-legged stance and gesticulating like a diminutive necromancer, Dio
looks and sounds supremely confident throughout the performance. Played to an
audience of around 2,000 hard rock fans, the show is light on the flashy stage
conventions of heavy metal such as pyrotechnics, laser lights, and rear
projection videos. But that only means that Dio is required to carry the show
and command attention with his voice and stage presence. He does so
effortlessly.

The Blu-ray presents the concert in a decent 1080i/1.78:1 transfer. Shot on
high definition, the show sports reasonable detail (not the best I've ever seen,
but not bad) with a minimal of digital artifacts. The frequently used red gel
lighting is often overblown, leading to some bleeding and general softness, but
that's a typical problem caused by the extreme lighting conditions at concert
events. As a theatrical venue, the Astoria is a fine place to record a musical
performance. The two audio options on the Blu-ray—a DTS-HD master audio
surround track and a linear PCM stereo track—are unostentatious but crisp
and well imaged. Bass is beefy without being muddy, midrange is punchy, and
treble never succumbs to distortion. Most important, Dio's voice is never lost
in the mix of instrumentation.

The only supplement is a handful of brief interviews with some of the
members of the band. The interviews are subtitled in English, French, Dutch, and
Spanish, though the main concert is not.

If you're into Ronnie James, Dio: Holy Diver Live (Blu-Ray) will
leave you with little gripe about. The singer is in top form, and the complete
performance of his most famous record is a rare treat. The Blu-ray isn't
state-of-the-art, but its audio/video presentation trumps anything that standard
definition can deliver.